Chapter 9 7. Inhuman vivisection

That was April 1945.At that time, the field hospital of the 117th Division of the Japanese Army to which I belonged was stationed in Jiaozuo Town, Henan Province, which is famous for its coal mines. Since a month ago, the main forces of the troops around us have been transferred to Laohekou to fight, and our hospital has also transferred about one-third of the troops. In addition, it is reported that the battle in Okinawa has entered a decisive stage.News from various quarters continued that after the "Battle of Laohekou", our division would be transferred. There were only five military doctors, headed by the dean, including me, left in the hospital. Almost no new patients were admitted to the hospital.

We spent day and night in the "officer's club", lulling our nerves with wine and women, and having fun.In such a restless environment, I always want to seek more intense stimulation. At this time, one day, the director of the hospital and a major military doctor, Danbao Siping, suddenly called me and said to me: "Tomorrow I plan to hold a military medical education class. You personally participated in the 12th Army Headquarters in Zhengzhou last October. I have experience in the military medical education class. This time, just follow the method that time. They want to execute a person in the gendarmerie detachment, and they can send this person to our hospital, and we can use him for any experiment. It’s a good opportunity. I want military doctors to give an educational class on surgery. Military doctors who come to the battlefield, no matter they are majoring in internal medicine or surgery, must be able to perform emergency operations, cecal operations, etc. anytime, anywhere. . . . ”

The words of the dean hit my heart, and I immediately replied: "Understood!" Since I went to the battlefield, I have heard people talk about "vivisection" for a long time. How I want to do it once!But last year in Zhengzhou, I just watched others do it, and I didn't have a chance to do it myself, so I felt really regretful. I went back to the infirmary, immediately worked out an implementation plan, and submitted it to the director.Then, on the same day, I made preparations, and I specifically asked Lieutenant Nitta and Second Lieutenant Gao Yan to read the surgery book and anatomy and study them carefully.

In the afternoon of the next day, the gatekeeper reported to me that a military police had brought a Chinese.I immediately ordered Mizutani, a trainee non-commissioned officer in the surgery department, to take them to the operating room.I pretended to be indifferent, pushed open the door of the operating room and walked in.Inside the room was a gendarme wearing Chinese-style clothes, who seemed to know Mizutani, and the two were talking about something.I said "Thanks for your hard work" to them as a greeting.On another look, the gendarme was holding a very strong rope in his hand.On the other end of the rope was a healthy-looking Chinese man in black with his hands tied behind his back, standing against the base of the wall.

My first impression of this Chinese was: a simple farmer in his mid-twenties.In order not to attract his attention, I secretly glanced at his profile.A pair of clear eyes embedded in his round face are staring out of the glass window.I took a closer look and found that the circles around his eyes were black and he looked very haggard, but his expression was very calm. I suddenly thought, this person probably doesn't know that he is going to be beheaded soon.So, I also regained my composure.I asked someone to bring a chair and urged the gendarme to sit down. The gendarme seemed to think that this man could not escape, so he untied the rope and let him sit on the chair next to him.The gendarme put his right hand into his trousers pocket, and it was obvious to everyone that he was holding a pistol in his hand.

In order to ease the tense atmosphere.I took out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket, handed each to Mizutani and the military police, and lit a match for them, signaling them to calm down. After a while, military doctors Nitta and Gao Yan walked into the operating room.Immediately afterwards, Cao Senxia, ​​the health soldier, and several health soldiers also walked in.The last person to come in was the director of the hospital with a white mustache under his nose. As soon as the director walked in, he immediately asked, "Lieutenant Noda, are you ready?" I threw the cigarette away, winked at Mizutani, and asked him to prepare for general anesthesia, and then tried to speak softly to the military police next to me: "I don't speak Chinese, tell him, let him Know what we mean."

The air in the room suddenly became tense.I then said to the Chinese: "I'll check your body and lie down on the Fengshu table!" After I finished speaking, I took a few steps.He came to the operating table, patted the table with his hands lightly, and made a gesture. The man didn't seem to understand the Chinese spoken by the gendarme, and a bewildered expression appeared on his face, and the gendarme pushed him to the operating table.Mizutani turned around and poured physiological saline and alcohol onto the medical cloth that had been folded in several layers.Others gathered around the operating table.

I knocked on the operating table again, and said impatiently: "Come to sleep, come to sleep!" The military police pushed the man onto the operating table vigorously. The moment he sat on the operating table, six men, including me, grabbed his hands, feet, waist, shoulders, and head, and forced him down on the operating table.Almost at the same time, Mizutani covered his nose and mouth with the cloth soaked in anesthetic.He suddenly wanted to sit up, and everyone held him down desperately, causing the operating table to move. I hurriedly hugged his head with both hands and fixed him firmly on the operating table.His face was full of anger, he clenched his teeth, held his breath, and shook his head from side to side, trying to avoid the medicine cloth covering his mouth.And Mizutani desperately pressed down on the medicinal cloth.In order to make the anesthetic work faster, I put the thumbs of both hands between the upper and lower jaws of his cheeks and pulled hard, his mouth opened, and he let out a short breathing sound of "heh, heh".

I told Mizutani who was in a daze, "Add more normal saline and alcohol!" He picked up the medicine bottle and pressed the button on the mouth of the bottle quickly, and the medicine was sprayed onto the medicine cloth in thin lines.The strong smell from the anesthetic evaporated into my nostrils, and after a while, I felt dizzy and weak all over.I knew that the anesthetic was working, so I was relieved.I told the guards to change the anesthetic to ether, and told them to tie the man's feet to the operating table, and told everyone not to let go until they were fully anesthetized.

I saw that the man had entered a period of deep anesthesia where his breathing gradually returned to normal, so I asked Mizutani to hand over the anesthesia work to Sanitary Sergeant Cao Sen, and then washed his hands to prepare for the operation.The health soldiers pushed the surgical instruments that had been prepared from the preparation room into the operating room. The gendarme who watched with relish asked: "Now, no matter how you play with him, he doesn't know, right?" I said, not only did he not know anything, he also lost his life unconsciously.The gendarme smiled dumbly and said, "This way of death is much better than being shot to death!"

I asked the health guards to untie the ropes on the man's feet, strip him of all his clothes, and make him completely naked.There are many purple scars on his body, it seems that he has been tortured many times.I didn't mind that, and ordered his hands and feet to be tied to the operating table again.I thought to myself, judging from the strong muscles in his shoulders and back, this man must be a farmer who has worked in the fields since he was a child. The three military doctors have all put on their surgical gowns, and they are all in their positions.At this time, the scene of "vivisection" of an anti-Japanese fighter in the hospital of the 12th Army Directly Controlled Military Station in Zhengzhou last year reappeared in my mind. That time, I stood around the operating table with 20 military doctors participating in the study, so nervous that I couldn't even breathe.Suddenly, Lieutenant Colonel Yan, who was the instructor at the Beijing First Army Hospital, shouted "Stand at attention."We all stood still at once.He reported to Kiyoshi Kawashima, the chief of the military medical department of the 12th Army who was in charge of the education class, "The autopsy is about to begin." Then, Changyan performed pathology on the living person who was completely unconscious due to general anesthesia, just like he did on the dead. During the dissection ceremony, a "salute" command was issued.Nitta and Mizutani opened one of the largest sheets and covered the naked body of the person underneath. Xintian said: "Since I became a doctor, I have only seen other people perform cecal operations a few times, but today is the first time to do it myself." He picked up the scalpel while talking.Twenty-five-year-old military doctor Gao Yan was originally an apprentice. He just graduated from school at the end of last year. He has only been in Henan for two or three months, and he has never had a decent operation yet.He closed his lips tightly and stood beside him nervously. Mizutani had undergone minor operations such as cecum, and he asked me softly, "Let's start then?" I said, "Wait a minute," and imitated Changyan's appearance, shouted "Stand at attention," and stood still. Reported to the dean confidently: "The autopsy is about to begin." The Dean nodded haughtily.I yelled "Salute" again.Facing the people who have been deprived of consciousness by cruel anesthesia today, just like facing the Chinese people who seem to be alive, I first lowered my head.Everyone followed me and bowed their heads with expressions of nervousness at this moment. My father was also a soldier.From the day I was born, I was indoctrinated with the supremacy of the Emperor and the spirit of Bushido.I was raised in the crucible of Japanese militarism.This hypocritical tradition is abhorrent.Expressing the so-called "salute" verbally, but actually carrying out inhumane and vicious activities, this is itself a feature of Japanese bushido. At the beginning of the "education class", Nitta performed the operation, Mizutani guided, and Gao Yan was the assistant. A 10 cm incision was made in the man's lower right abdomen to perform cecal surgery.The excised cecum, as thin as an earthworm, is perfectly healthy. Then, Mizutani performed the operation, with Nitta and Gao Yan as assistants, cut a large incision about 30 cm from the chest fossa to the navel, that is, cut the stomach from the center, and carried out "counting internal organs".Mizutani inserted both hands into the man's stomach, and touched the stomach along the omentum.Then, he opened the intestines to expose the black and green gallbladder inside the liver for everyone to see. The stench of the internal organs of living people rushed straight into my nose.But at the time, this smell made me feel very comfortable.At this time, I remembered that in Baoting, Hebei Province, Captain Fujiki of the Gendarmerie once begged me to get him a living healthy liver, because a living liver can cure all diseases. Suddenly, I felt someone stabbing me in the back. I turned around and saw that it was the military policeman.He said to me with a livid face: "I still have something to do, so I'm sorry today, please take care of me in the future." After speaking, he left the operating room hastily. After a while, the "counting internal organs" ended, and the abdominal wall was stitched up again.I reached under the sheet and felt for the pulse on the man's wrist.His pulse was a little weaker, but there was no major change.I told Morishita to use less ether. This time, Gao Yan, Mizutani and Nitta and I were divided into two groups to perform the amputation of the right arm and left leg.These two major operations must be performed on a living person at the same time.I also washed my hands, had them wrap a tourniquet around the base of my right arm and left leg, and perform various types of skin disinfection. I cut the skin around the bottom third of the man's left thigh, peeled the skin off, and rolled it out a little.Then cut the man's thigh muscles to the bone at once. This kind of operation can only be performed by a surgeon.I wanted Gao Yan to experience it, so I ordered him to bring a large cutting knife.Then, with one arm around the man's thigh, I made a gesture with the knife in the other hand, and taught him how to cut it in one go. If the cut surface is tooth-shaped, it will be very difficult to find blood vessels when hemostasis, so I asked him again to pay attention to cutting the tendons and muscles around the femur in a plane until the femur is cut.I asked the health guard to lift the man's foot, and Gao Yan followed the method I said, and cut in one go, cutting all the soft tissue around the femur.Blood flowed out like a waterfall.The severed muscles were still twitching slightly. Gao Yan hurriedly picked up the hemostatic forceps to stop the bleeding, and I said, "The blood is going to drain anyway, so don't worry about it!" After I finished speaking, I quickly tore apart the muscles with both hands, and pulled the tendons connecting the femur. The tendon is stripped from the periosteum.After the white femur bone was exposed, I wrapped the severed end of the muscle with a dozen medicinal cloths, lifted it up, and told Gao Yan that when sawing the femur bone with a bone saw, try to saw the upper side as much as possible. The saw creaked and pulled up, and the saw blade had already penetrated into the bone. Suddenly, the saw stopped moving.I ordered the health guard who lifted the foot to press down hard to make the incision in the bone bigger.At this time, Gao Yan pulled the saw vigorously again.After a while, the thigh bone was sawed off.At this moment, the health guard who lifted his foot dropped the severed thigh to the concrete floor because the thigh was too heavy. The thigh fell to the ground, splashing the pool of blood on the ground, and it fell on the sandals of me and Gao Yan, staining our feet red.While explaining without paying attention, I taught Gao Yan to ligate several major blood vessels. "When dealing with nerves, try to pull out the nerves and make them smoother, otherwise, the patient will suffer when the prosthesis is installed. But today, let's not care about these." I taught Gao Yan like a teacher. After the bones and tendons were rasped flat, the tourniquet was slowly removed, and two or three arterioles were still bleeding, and they were ligated.When the cut surface was wiped with a medicated cloth, blood was still oozing out there. "It will be fine as soon as these are stitched together," I said while teaching Gao Yan to wrap up the muscles and tendons around the thighbone and sew them up. After the amputation of the left thigh was completed, we both breathed a sigh of relief.We plunged our bloody hands into the white disinfectant, and the blood turned black and purple. At this time, Mizutani and Nitta had already completed the amputation of their right arms and were sitting on the side smoking.I ordered Morishita to suspend the anesthesia, "If he moves his hands and feet, it means that the anesthesia is about to be lifted, then add ether!" After speaking, I lifted the bed sheet and looked at the man's face. He was still asleep under deep anesthesia.This man, who had been perfectly healthy two or three hours before, was now completely changed, pale, with blue lips.His pulse was thin and weak, and fast.But the pupils are still normal, this person's vitality is really strong! The last operation was performed by Gao Yan, with me as an assistant, performing a bronchotomy.After finishing, this "education" plan will be completed. The dean sent the health lieutenant Ito to contact, let us do the aftermath as soon as possible.The military doctors put on their uniforms.I also changed my clothes, lit a cigarette and went to the bathroom.After getting out of the toilet, I went back to the operating room.The sheets have been removed from the Chinese.The man who lost his right arm and left leg was lying naked on the operating table.In a corner of the operating room, the severed left leg and right arm were placed, and the health guards were washing the concrete floor with cold water. Seeing this, I instinctively thought, don't let more people see this matter.When I looked up, I saw four or five soldiers looking into the room from the window of the operating room.I hurriedly roared: "Hey! Go away!" I called Morishita and asked him to bring a 5ml syringe.How much air must be injected into a man's veins to kill him?I have long been interested in this question. Now is a good time.I asked Morishita to stick the needle of the syringe into the man's slender left arm vein and inject 5 milliliters of air into it.However, that person didn't change much. I was surprised, and said to Morishita quickly: "Take another 20ml syringe and give it another shot!" Morishita sucked air into a 20ml syringe and inserted the needle into a vein.I saw that as soon as a little air was pumped in, the barrel of the syringe stopped still.Morishita pressed down desperately with his thumb.But I couldn't move it.I was in a hurry, "Get away! Let me do it!" I stood beside Morishita, and without letting him pull out the needle, I took the syringe and pushed it down hard.However, the syringe remained motionless.I observed carefully that the needle was not broken, so I held the syringe upright, pressed my elbow against my lower abdomen, and put all my strength on the syringe.Gulu, Gulu, Gulu, the cylinder finally moved a few times.As half the air in the syringe was pushed into the man's blood vessels, there was a frightening gurgling sound from the heart area of ​​his left chest. At this time, the Chinese man's jaw moved, and I pulled out the needle. I thought he might take a deep breath, but saw his jaw drop.Seeing his pale face lose the last bit of blood, gradually showing the appearance of death. At this time, I thought that his heart had probably stopped beating, so I hurriedly touched his left chest with my left hand.I didn't feel a heartbeat, so I asked Morishita for a stethoscope, and put the receiver into the man's heart.The heart sounds can no longer be heard, only the last murmur of sand——sand—when the heart stops beating before death. I ordered Morishita who was standing beside me in a daze: "I said, the heart has stopped beating completely. You can contact Lieutenant Ito and send the body to the pit dug behind the stable to bury it!" After finishing speaking, I walked out of the operation room. It was dusk outside, and night was about to fall.When I returned to the medical office, Mizutani hadn't returned yet.After he came back, we went back to the dormitory together.We walked slowly, and our mood gradually returned to calm. "I said, Mizutani! What on earth is this man doing today?" I thought, since he often sees doctors for the military police, he probably knows about it. "I heard that he is an eight-way 'secret agent'." He replied. At this time, I couldn't help thinking that he must be a farmer.In fact, whether he is a farmer or a secret agent has nothing to do with me. I am just asking in passing, not wanting to find out.However, the terrible rustling noise when his heart stopped beating just before he died, remained stubbornly in my eardrum. And, eleven years later, that voice still rings in my ears. Now, in front of my eyes, there is the uninterrupted and beautiful distant view of the foothills of Taihang Mountain, which connects the fertile fields in Henan.At the same time, happy images of the peace-loving Chinese people fighting for the construction of socialism also emerged.However, just under this land are buried countless Chinese who were killed by us and died of hatred.My chest feels like it's going to explode every time I think about it. As an ordinary person, I have done bad things that I can't even imagine because of my participation in the war of aggression. Originally, medical skills were called "benevolent skills", and medicine should serve the entire human society.However, because I participated in the war of aggression, I consciously regarded medicine as a means of killing people. This is really an offense and a blasphemy against medicine. In the recent period, based on my own painful experience, I decided to deny the war of aggression.At the same time, I would like to express my deep gratitude from the bottom of my heart to the Chinese people who awakened my conscience as a human being, pointed out my mission as a doctor, and let me continue to live. I swear that as long as I live in the future, I will fight against the war of aggression. Author bio: Original army - Field Hospital of the 117th Division; Original military rank - Lieutenant Military Doctor; Birthplace - Gifu County; Education - Graduated from Tokyo Medical College (1941); Age - Born in 1925.